


Death by Torchwood

by Galexi



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst and Feels, Children of Earth Compliant, Episode: s03e04 Children of Earth - Day 4, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 09:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19742782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galexi/pseuds/Galexi
Summary: Ianto: Don't forget me.Jack: Never could.Ianto: A thousand years’ time you won't remember me.Jack: Yes, I will. I promise.Jack promises to remember Ianto Jones. In ten years’ time, in one hundred years’ time, in a thousand years’ time.Jack swears he will. He has to. Because it’s his fault.





	Death by Torchwood

Torchwood has failed Ianto. Again.

No one can deny it. He managed to escape the slaughter at Canary Wharf two years ago. A needless loss of nearly eight hundred Torchwood staff and countless civilians caused by the ignorant, overconfident, all-powerful Torchwood One. Since then he’s survived human cannibals, aliens, man men with guns, Weevils, and the End of Days. But now Ianto's here, struggling to breathe as he collapses into Jack’s arms. He’s here because of Jack's ignorance, overconfidence, and assumed power over a situation he's caused. Ianto's going to die for no reason other than Jack's mistakes. One over forty years old and another made today.

And there’s nothing Jack can do.

They've gone in with no plan, just a cocky attitude fuelled by the belief that they're right, that they will win. It's the same thing that brought down Torchwood One. Only this time Ianto won't survive.

Jones, Ianto Jones, who dreamed of being a hero, will be one of a couple of hundred men and women dead in Thames House. Another innocent person who turned up to work probably didn’t expect to die today. Another person who didn’t really know what was going on. None of them did, Jack included. They were trying to save the planet and protect the children, but instead the situation had escalated quickly out of control. A situation that had never in control to start with.

How could two men stop them really? Two men up against an alien race that can speak through the children, an alien race that breaths poison. An alien race that promised an antivirus to a new strain of Indonesian Flu in return for twelve children forty-four years ago. An alien race that had already promised to wipe out humanity with a virus if they did not get what they wanted.

They never stood a chance.

That had been the problem. Torchwood Three had started to believe they were more powerful than they really were. They’d started to become too big for their boots. Since Tosh and Owen had died, they’d changed. Jack had wanted to prove to his remaining team that despite the danger and death they could take a stand and survive. He’d needed to make it up to them, after all, Tosh and Owen’s deaths had been his fault. Another of his mistakes that had resulted in the deaths of his friends. He wondered how many more mistakes would come back to haunt him in his extended lifetime.

Jack had taken them both to the Marine Trench just because he had wanted to see what lay on the ocean floor. Officially, it had been under UNIT jurisdiction, but he had wanted to show Gwen and Ianto another world. He would never be able to show them the stars, but he could show them an alien world on the bottom of their own planet. And whilst their visits to Switzerland and India could be classed as official business, he couldn’t deny that it had been more responsibility than the usual Weevil hunts and rift monitoring that they were used to. Torchwood Cardiff was starting to show all the warning signs. They had begun to believe they could win whatever the odds, despite not knowing all the facts. But now Jack knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, Torchwood was an immortal conman, an excellent coffee agent, and a feisty ex-cop. They weren’t heroes from a children’s story with a happy ending. For them, there couldn’t be a happy ending. That wasn’t the way Torchwood worked.

They should have stayed away until they knew more, or at least tried to talk to the other advisors, but with the deadline pushing them to make their choice they had made a deadly mistake. They believed they were superior and new better than those who had tried to kill them, but they hadn’t. Instead, they rushed in and made things worse. Jack taunted the aliens, goaded them, and they had responded in turn. And Ianto had stood by his side, supported him like he always did. Jack hadn’t asked for Ianto to follow him, he never did, but deep down they both knew Ianto would follow him wherever he went. Ianto would always follow Jack, even if it led to his death. And this time it had.

Jack could plead with the 456 all he liked, but he knew he would be the only person walking out of this building alive. It would be a pointless death. Ianto is a hero, but instead he’s one of hundreds paying for Jack’s mistakes. It’s not a hero’s death. Ianto won’t be dying to save others, to protect the ones he loves, or to keep the world safe. He’ll just be one name in a list of many.

  * _I. Jones, M, 26._



No one will remember him. No one will know what he tried to do or the sacrifice he made. No one will know that whilst Jack ran from the room to warn others, Ianto took a stand against the alien race they knew too little about. He hadn’t tried to run to save his own life; perhaps even then he knew it was pointless. Instead, he had tried to stop them, knowing it would cost him his life if he succeeded. But they hadn’t. They had both known that the bullets were unlikely to work. It had been a pointless act of defiance. They hadn’t succeeded in anything. His death will have achieved nothing. Tomorrow, all the governments of the world will be handing over ten percent of their children and Jack couldn’t do anything to stop them. It was over.

This wasn’t one of his nightmares where Ianto would sacrifice himself in order to save Jack so he could go on to save the world. He could feel the fight draining out of him as Ianto struggled to stay conscious. There wasn’t anything to fight, not this time. He had no weapons, no alien tech, not even his vortex manipulator. He could only pray that Ianto’s niece and nephew would be spared. He hoped Gwen would manage to keep them safe. His grandson he was less worried about; they were targeting families like Ianto's rather than his daughters. Steven would always be protected by his mum. She was too smart to let anyone take her son away from her. It would take a team of special forces to separate Melissa from Steven. 

Ianto’s dying his arms, his eyes fluttering with the effort to stay open. His body's becoming heavier with each passing moment. They both fear the same thing. Nobody will even remember his name.

But Jack will remember him. In ten years’ time, in one hundred years’ time, in a thousand years’ time.

Jack swears he will. He has to.

Ianto’s eyes aren’t opening no matter how much Jack pleads. He should never have come here. They should have stayed away. Instead, Torchwood has led another employee by their hand to their death.

It’s Torchwood’s fault that Ianto Jones is dead. Only this time, Torchwood is Jack.

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t believe it’s been 10 years to the day since Ianto’s death! As much as I hated it at the time, I’ve grown to love Children of Earth and regard it as one of the best Torchwood stories (even if I can rarely watch it, it still makes me cry!). I loved writing this, projecting my denial of Ianto’s death from 2009 onto Jack. I think today, most of us can see that Ianto did die a hero’s death by Jack’s side, however much we hated it at the time. But it doesn’t mean Jack has to like it either. And like Jack, I like to think that after 10 years we still remember our beloved Tea Boy: Ianto Jones.


End file.
